Dick Morris Comes Out and Says It

[paft.livejournal.com]

Dick Morris on Sean Hannity, 2/28/11:

We may at long last have a way to liberate our nation from the domination of those who should be our public servants but instead are frequently our union masters and free our politics from their financial power…What is at stake here really is freeing our schools so that we could keep good teachers and fire bad ones, freeing our state government so we don’t have high local taxes (and exactly how are those good teachers going to be paid?) and obliterating the financial power base of the Democratic Party.

The money quote is underlined above. This attack on collective bargaining is not about helping kids. It’s about establishing what amounts to a one-party system. Eliminate the power of unions and the G.O.P., with its corporate backing, gets to run things pretty much unopposed.

These people do not grasp the most basic principle of an open society – equal access to the political process as a voter and as a candidate.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

*

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So Dick Morris sees it as a political victory as well as a victory for taxpayers and schools. That doesn't mean everyone involved does, nor does it invalidate the other reasons for wanting to go through with this.

Dick Morris is ignorant anyway - the unions wouldn't disappear under Walker's proposal, nor can unions be abolished Constitutionally anyway. The power base, the financial base, would remain. They just wouldn't be able to hold taxpayers hostage in financial negotiations the way they have been for so long.

What you're doing is akin to saying since one union protester had Walker's face in crosshairs that every union member wants Walker to be shot.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

What you're doing is akin to saying since one union protester had Walker's face in crosshairs that every union member wants Walker to be shot.

that's not true?

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

A related article on the subject (http://watchingamerica.com/News/90858/dateline-usa-breach-of-social-contract/) - the Wisconsin events seen from abroad. And another one (http://watchingamerica.com/News/90876/wisconsin-concerns-us-all/).

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

But this one provides the money shot (http://watchingamerica.com/News/91162/republicans-the-red-scare-is-back/):

The dream of American conservatives is to create an oligarchical system similar to the one that ruled over Russia: power for a few, deconstruction of regulation, and privatization of all that could be sold.

In reality, what is going on in Wisconsin has nothing to do with the official reasons invoked by the governor and his supporters. ... The hypocrisy is flagrant: Although the governor admits that it is necessary to reduce the deficit, he is trying to pass tax cuts for a portion of the population (always the same one), which does nothing but exacerbate the deficit.

The governor, elected six weeks ago — thanks to the financial help of the super-conservative millionaire Koch brothers, financiers of the tea party, in the hope that the movement would abolish pollution regulation — simply wants to erase the unions and, above all, their ability to speak on behalf of the employees of an industry. Above all, the unions that do not think like he does, because he is not as hot-headed toward the unions that are closer to the Republicans.

It is precisely this oligarchy that, in pushing for more and more deregulation, has provoked the very financial crisis that America is facing today; it was not the unions. And now, the oligarchy is using the pretext of the crisis in order to eliminate the modest forces of opposition that continue to be against such a form of government. Machiavelli could never have imagined this.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's funny how the other side conveniently ignores when they do the same thing. Both the Republican Party and the Democrat Party are guilty of wanting to be completely in charge and doing whatever they can to get there, and both are at fault for the financial crisis and trying to gain from it.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Wow. It's rare to see something this completely off base. It's like the facts are optional. I wonder what the media is telling these people.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

It's incredible that this researcher was able to tap into the dreams of American conservatives. Clearly, the tinfoil isn't working.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how liberals used to not like public unions, but now can't see the problem with them.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703837004575013424060649464.html
Such 20th-century liberal heroes as New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia and Franklin Roosevelt believed fervently in industrial unions. But they believed public employees had a special social obligation and could too easily exploit their monopoly position.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Liberals don't like interning people for no good reason at all, which FDR did. They also don't like strategic bombing of civilians, which FDR took for an art form. This was funny at first, but now it's annoying. Decide whether you guys want FDR to be a communazi who defeated Hitler and sold us out to Stalin at Yalta or you want him to be a secret Conservative and stick with one consistent agitprop.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

(YOU)-------------------------------------------------------------(point)



gunslinger was not trying to make FDR into a secret conservative, how was pointing out that the progressive love of public sector labor unions is a recent invention and is not a core part of the progressive ideology and that even the heroes of the progressive movement were smart enough to recognize the dangers they posed.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

What I don't get is how anyone anywhere takes Dick Morris seriously. Talk about the slimiest rat there is, going where his nose leads him to the cheese, whatever side it is on.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Seriously, the guy would still gladly be with the Dems if he hadn't been caught in some weird sex shit. Clinton kicked him to the curb so he went to Fox where they only care about sex scandals among those who disagree with them.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

The dude is some abomination of rat and snail. Just listening to him makes your skin crawl.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Doesn't that simply make him an ordinary politician?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

No. Ordinary politicians pick a side and stay there.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Jon Stewart's piece on how conservatives are so offended (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/laugh-and-cry/jon-stewart-hystericals-defens.html) when bankers and Wall Street executives are treated so poorly ("class warfare!") with lots of excerpted clips showing that from CNBC and Fox News, then fast forward to their bashing teachers (and of course union participants). It was pretty rocking.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Was it the exact same people in both instances, or just generic "conservatives"?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

You seem to be under the illusion that the Democan party receives any less money from corporations than the Republicrat party does.

This is a rather laughable assumption and I know you tend to be rather immune to facts however...

http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/blio.php

Where we find that Business donations to politicians during 5 of the last 6 election cycles (sorry, 2010 is not posted yet) going back to 1999 have been split 53.4% - 46.6% in favor of the Republicrats.

The net difference in corporate donations is +$468 million in favor of the Republicrats out of over $6.8 trillion in total corporate donations. Further in the 2008 election cycle Democans received $166 Million more incorporate donations than Republicrats did showing that it the category is not universally the province of the Republicrat party.

When you look at all political donations over the same period regardless of source you find $8.7 Trillion in total donations with the Republicrats recieving $50.7% and the Democans recieving $49.3% for a net difference of $129 Million.

So what happens if Mr Morris gets everything he ever wished for with regards to labor unions and absolutely no political agencies rise up to take their place?

Well total labor donations during this period amounted to $389 Million 91.3% of which went to Democans so this would raise the Republicrat fund raising edge to $450 Million over the course of 9 years and the total split in fund raising would be Republicrat - 52.7%, Democan - 47.2% and the Democan party would have lost a whopping 8% of their total political donations.


In other words you are both wrong. Labor Unions are no more the financial power base of the Democan Party than they are of the Republicrat Party and both parties are equally in the hip pockets of corporate donations to virtually the same extent.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

" Labor Unions are no more the financial power base of the Democan Party than they are of the Republicrat Party "

That's false. By your own words.

"Well total labor donations during this period amounted to $389 Million 91.3% of which went to Democans... the Democan party would have lost a whopping 8% of their total political donations."

Clearly the labor unions give more to democrats than republicans and compose a larger chunk of the democrat base than the republican base.


Also: labor unions are socialist!
-or something
/snark

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Of course it doesn't matter when he says this, nobody in the Republican Party supports what the Republican Party actually does except to keep voting them in until they die of old age in the Congress. Just like how the Tea Party is completely non-partisan given that it started protesting TARP in 2008 but not suspension of Habeas Corpus in 2007 or warrantless spying of the government on civilian phone-calls or lying the USA into a senseless, useless continuation of the 1990s bombing raids.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I, however, would add a major caveat to this-the true key to an open society is that any would-be dictator has either enough fear of rioting mobs or a sufficiently Byzantine governmental apparatus to keep him from pulling that bullshit off. It's a nice illusion that mere open access to the political process alone will do it, but that doesn't reflect reality.

After all, didn't Saddam Hussein have 100% of the Iraqi vote a few weeks before we invaded in what were supposedly "free and fair elections?".

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Um. If the democrats or republicans had no money at all, it would in fact be a one party system. It kind of is now: the have money party.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Well, Liberals spend their time bitching about how the financial power base of the Republican party is corporations. Unions seem to be the opposite of that.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Unions are the people, corporations are not the people. The government is supposed to be ruled by the people, not corporations. Would you consider it oh so equally valid (by distributed middle fallacy) if there was an Islamic party and people said you couldn't criticize that all their funding came from muslim religious centers?